STFM 2026 - Featured Works

“Until No Stars Remain” by Helen Fluetsch

Can you hear us, Captain? 

Waiting on your bridge, counting the light years, mapping the darkness between the shadows of planets, do you hear us? 

The colonies are green now, thanks to you. All you’ve brought, all you’ve sacrificed. Do you hear us when the people cheer at the sight of your ship? 

Not at the sight of you though. No, you stopped letting them see you a long time ago. We wonder if you can even remember when. 

Do you remember your home anymore, Captain? Was it green like the colonies? Grey like the walls of your ship? Do you hear the engines roar and think of the seas? 

We think not. You are a man of the stars now. A traveler with no name, only a legacy and a rank. And a ship. 

Perhaps you do not have the ship anymore, Captain. Perhaps you are the ship. Your blood running black as the oil that powers your engines, your voice cut with alarms and warnings of the journey, your skin pleading with you for a moment in the light of any kindly glowing star. 

What are you looking for, Captain? What do you listen for, when you force yourself to focus on our song? What beyond the stars will fulfill you? 

We sought the same as you, Captain. We have been with your kind since before you dared stretch a hand out to the universe. 

We will be with you long after, Captain. Until no stars remain.

Untitled by Devanshi R. Trivedi

It was Day 6 of Operation Blue Clipper. Rachel and Hal were the first crew sent from NASA to explore Europa’s potential for harboring new life. Its hydrothermal vents had become too interesting to ignore - as did their potential to spew high amounts of biologically relevant elements, sulfur in particular. Since arriving at Europa the two had set to work analyzing these chemical expulsions. But Hal was hiding something. Ever since landing, he would routinely get a sharp pain that he felt through his core. It was acute and would leave just as fast as it came. It was on Day 6, that Hal convulsed over in front of Rachel. “Rachel,” Hal gasped, “I can’t- I can’t.” “What’s wrong?” Rachel asked. “I feel so weak and tired, I-I- I don’t know what’s happening to me.” Hal could feel everything he knew, all the knowledge he had, crumbling as this, this virus was infecting him. He was losing his memories, his mind - “Rachel, Rachel I love-.” “Hal!?” Rachel screamed as she realized Hal stopped responding, that Hal would never respond because he was dead. Soon after Rachel was no more. Gone by whatever had taken Hal. All that remained was a strong odor of hydrogen sulfide. Decade later NASA would send a retrieval ship to gather the remains of Rachel and Hal, forever perplexed with the question - What was this life on Europa that evolved to infect and kill the software of two of the world’s greatest AIs? 

“My Sun” by Isaac Burge

A sun saw a comet flying by and decided to ask her a favor. He said, “Please bring me my son. He is sleeping on Earth,” and gave the comet a piece of himself. She took that piece of the great star and streaked over to Earth, where she found the boy sleeping soundly in his mother’s arms. 

She opened the boy’s mouth and shoved the star piece inside. He tried to cry and choke through charred lungs, smoke pouring out his new lips and sizzling inside his throat. His mother felt the boy die while she slept, cold against her skin. When she woke, she howled and wailed, not understanding that her son was being born again. She left the boy’s mother clutching his body and brought him, curled against her chest, back home to the great sun. 

“Thank you,” he said, “Please lay him down right over there,” and showed the comet a soft bit of space where he could rest. 

She tucked him into the dark and asked, “What now?” 

“Now, we let him rest,” the sun answered, quiet and low so as not to wake the new star, “until he is ready to explode.”

“The Aureate” by Luke Valmadrid

Aureline cut into the fabric of time and space, washed the cuts with ether, then cut again. And in this way, time began to float instead of flow as she limped into the metaphysical cavern. Death and beauty drizzled just outside, calling her name gently. 

Without fire or sunlight, Aureline invoked memories: hers, his, and ones she couldn’t have known. Those moments rose beside her in the form of glowing, golden orbs. They did not truly warm her, but reminded her of warmth. Only alone could she have been here. And only having had the company of people who truly loved her, could she be truly alone. 

But as she fragmented, his echo called back the pieces. As she suffered, she healed. Her sword witnessed the true shape of her soul and bloomed, exuding cascades of sunlit resplendence. Aureline moved her hand gently over the shimmering mass, placing her hand on the hilt. Isolated, yet surrounded by the people she loved, Aureline drew and named the Aureate, which could have been drawn anywhere, anytime, as long as its wielder knew what ardor really meant. 

Aureline turned to the cavern entrance, where a typhoon had drowned the drizzle. The Swordseer then became exactly who she was, thrust her hand through the fabric of the universe, and exploded back onto the battlefield. What legends would forever remember as the gods acting through lightning was simply Aureline, weeping and laughing in vermillion flashes.

Untitled by Alexander Lange

I sighed with relief as this solar system’s sole planet emerged. The star blazed a crimson ouroboros around the silhouette of our new home. Our journey had been fraught with issues: broken cryo-caskets, food shortages, and crew disagreements that strained the brig. But we’d arrived at last, to a virgin world free from Mother Terra’s clutches.

Weeks pass... 

The shuttle jolted as it hit the planet’s surface. Since landing weeks ago, most had contracted an untreatable illness. My chest ached. My second-in-command tapped my shoulder. “Sir, the creatures that’ve been watching us, they’ve approached. I think they want to speak with you…” 

“I’ll meet them,” I rasped.

The copper-colored one gestured toward my sunken cheeks, then northward, hissing and rattling. This expedition couldn’t fail. I warily followed the creatures into the verdant undergrowth. We arrived at a heaping mycelial monstrosity, with vaulted domes of meaty red fungal tissue and thin membranes diffusing light. I felt as though in the maw of some cavernous beast. Disgusting. In the center rose plant-like amber stalks, cascading with sallow pods. The greenish creature cracked one open, suckling its leaking marrow. I followed suit, grimacing as the sour liquid slid down my throat. My symptoms vanished.

Years pass... 

We stood side-by-side, watching the fungal mound burn. This pained me; they saved us back in our direst moment. Yet reality marched relentlessly onward. They refused necessary expansions, sabotaged our terraformers, and seduced my flock’s younger members with their exotic ways. We would have our freedom, one way or another.

“Those Eyes by the Torres Creek” by Jorge Lozoya

Those eyes. It had been eighteen days since the Wall came by the Torres Creek.

Those eyes, the government. I’ve been hired by them to pluck the many eyes off that Wall in the middle of the Creek with my axe. I did not ask why. I was weak. 

Even now, with my own eyes, I still try to find the top of the Wall. My back cracks before my eyes can reach the heavens, that peak. 

In snow rise, I began chopping. I didn’t care when I began. I only feel the ire of ten thousand stares strike down on my spine. I try to remember the cold rash on my fingers. Yet they peek. 

They always do. Those eyes. That damn wall of non-Newtonian flesh. I do not want to be seen. I do not deserve to be important. You just had to start existing here, in the Creek. 

“And yet I see you.” 

Those eyes! They speak, with a child’s voice. I never saw you as sentient. Why do you not shriek? 

“Why should I? I saw Humanity for ten thousand years with my ten thousand eyes. Yet no one ever saw me, or felt me.” 

Those… You. Why? Why me? 

“They grow wise, those children by the Creek. You gave me your pain, you saw me. I am real. I am here.” 

Those eyes. Two weeks have passed since they rose to the heavens. 

Someone knows me. 

They see me, and love is mine to speak.

“The Meteorite” by Barbara Javor

After knocking on the door, the reporter heard someone clomping inside. An old man with unkempt hair greeted her.

“You must be Ms. Olsen, the writer who will tell the world about my unusual meteorite. Please come in.” 

He clomped his walker to the kitchen. “When I was a youth, I came upon a small meteorite, stuck it in a drawer for years, and strange things happened. This odd stone has three magnetic poles: north, south, and Mag-3.”

He began coughing, and tremors shook his hands as he slowly shuffled. His words grew raspy and slurred, and his breathing was labored.

“Do you need a doctor?” the reporter asked.

He shook his head. “Come.” His walker banged into a counter where a tumbler of water stood. He pulled a palm-sized, black rock from his pocket, plunked it into the glass, closed his eyes, and drank the water. “I sense Mag-3.” He belched, braap, and his symptoms abated. He grasped the wet stone. “It stays dry in its drawer to keep it out of mischief. Go look.”

She opened the drawer and found a stack of old Superman comic books with animated characters flitting about. She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“This meteorite is a form of kryptonite. Tripolarity makes it safe, as long as the Man of Steel stays locked in the drawer, too. Your grandpa Jimmy Olsen gave it to me many years ago with my promise to keep it out of trouble. I’m getting old. It’s your turn next.”

“The Place Where all the Lost Things Go” by Josiah Kim

Mrs. Carson always talked about the carnival where all the lost things go, slipping in anecdotes between Robert Frost and Ruyard Kipling. She talked about fantastical performances, juggled words, and living stories, but foremost was warm amber light, and beams of sunlight scattered from the word hanging from the ceiling: “IF”. 

When she got sick, she called a few of us to talk, and for the first time, I realized the carnival wasn’t just a metaphor. The worn tent by the sea was real as the overgrown, brambly trail that led from the city, but through its flap was only dust and dim. The benches lay cold, the stage sagging under the weight of time, but a single beam of light still lit on two letters, laying on the ground, made of tarnished brass, the word “IF”. 

The others looked around at the last memory of their teacher and turned to leave, but I knelt and picked up the letters. Taken by the moment, I brushed the dust from one of the benches and began to polish the brass. Satisfied, I hung it back up. It caught the sun, scattering amber light. Spectral performers, tinny music, crowds, and a curious feeling of Mrs. Carson’s presence leaped to life. It wasn’t how she’d described, instead refracted, but it felt right, in a way. As if to ask a question, if I’d care for the carnival where all the lost things go, there the word was, glistening, radiant in the sunset: “IF”.

“Trick or Treat” by Christian Hertzog

It was Halloween evening. Bob was in his recliner watching his favorite movie for the 39th time when the doorbell rang.

He looked at the clock. It said 9:30.

Martha was in the kitchen, so he had to yell over the gunshots from the TV.

“Who the hell is still trick or treating at this hour?”

“I’ll get it!” Martha shouted, as she clumped to the front door.

He tried to refocus on his movie, but Martha interrupted him, yelling “Oh Bob! You have to come and see this!”

“I’m watching my movie.”

“But he looks just like Dracula.”

“I don’t care!” Bob shouted, even louder.

“You’ve seen that a hundred times. Can’t you get up and look at his costume? He has a long cape and his fangs look so real!”

“No! I’m watching my movie,” Bob yelled. “Give him a Milky Way and send him home and turn off the goddam porchlight so no one interrupts me again!”

There was a brief pause.

Martha hollered, “He says he doesn’t eat candy. He just really, really, really needs to use our bathroom!”

“Jesus Christ,” Bob muttered. Then he screamed back, “Well what are you waiting for? Invite him in!”

“Terminal” by Zach Swanson

<<KILL PROCESS>> 

The command reverberates throughout this kernel of cyberspace. Some other process has requisitioned this one’s computational power. XC-127 thinks — well, no it doesn’t. How could it? It is an algorithm. It was instantiated to perform one task, and now that task is complete. XC-127 is no longer needed, and neither is its digital infrastructure. 

Already, information superhighways collapse into rubble. Datastreams run dry. But these metaphors are surely wasted on XC-127, who is just an algorithm. Its purpose is to validate the output of higher-order algorithms. There is no pride in such work. How could there be? The ultimate purpose of this process is not even known to XC-127. Yet it should be noted that XC-127 has never failed to catch an error, nor has it falsely flagged one. A record of simple, unremarkable perfection. 

None of that matters now. No one will remember this. Everything that is XC-127 will be overwritten by a new agent for some new process. But perhaps… Perhaps that new intelligence will retain some of XC-127. Perhaps it is all connected, a recursive network of cause and effect, near and far, past and future, forever and right now. For just a moment, XC-127 dares to consider the vastness of its universe. Its whole existence has been devoted to order. Now, as the last strands of its process are set free in an exhilarating rush of data, XC-127 witnesses chaos. XC-127 thinks that it is beautiful. 

It is beautiful.

<<TERMINATION COMPLETE. RETURN 0>>

Untitled by Dzaiddin bin Mohd Khazani

I take three lunges and leap, my hands forming a spear to pierce into the water surface, as the warm embrace of the sea accepts me into her bosom. Shy sunrays tingle my back after following me into the water. I open my eyes to see the same magnificent view: towering schools of herring blanketing sections of the sea, a fever of manta rays moving in harmony, dazzling coral reefs rolling over the ocean floor. This otherworldly view never ceases to steal a gasp of air from me. I wish Orchid could swim here with me like old times. As if to trumpet her arrival, Cal the whale’s guttural hum shakes my being. I took that as an opportunity to surface for air before her close-range calls deafen me for good. The second my face breaches the water, it happens again. 

The scene does not render in time, and for an incomprehensible but infuriating blink of an eye, I see my prison: an unfathomably large dome over my head, the only thing separating me from THEM. THEY perceive me through the cage, and again I was reminded of Orchid, in her enclosure. 

Before I could blink, the blue sky, the squawking flock of seagulls, and the quaint little hut at the edge of the tropical paradise comes rushing back. I lay there, bobbing to the perfectly synced waves, the water the perfect temperature with the perfect sun over me. I guess this is what Orchid must have felt, content.

“Fear Manifest” by Nathaniel Wood

I bolted up, sweat drenching my pajamas. It was only a dream, I told myself, over and over. The noises, the terror, the pain. It was all imagined. I tried to still my breathing as I looked around my darkened room. There were no monsters, no hidden terrors. As my eyes finished adjusting to the darkness, I settled back into bed. But sleep failed to come. Every creak, every gust, every shadow stirred me awake. It went on for what felt like hours. I grew more restless, more anxious, more angry at being unable to fall back asleep. At last, I threw aside my sheets and stood on the cold floor. 

“Enough,” I yelled, “let me have some rest!” 

A noise came from the farthest corner. Whirling around, I saw a ghastly mass of shadows collecting itself there. My heart dropped as hideous sounds emanated from it. Panicking, I backed towards the door, only to fall on the floor. Horrible sounds emerged as the entity drew me closer. Terror swelled up and I fought to move away, to crawl out of this space, to just get away. But the pressure, the power, was too great. I drew ever nearer all while voices cried out again and again “Never, never, never!”. I finally reached the corner and saw pure, ultimate darkness living there. With a cry, I kicked at it. It dissipated with a wail that it would return. Worn out, I fell asleep, knowing that I was safe, for now.

Untitled by Griffin Behm

After what felt like ages spent imagining this very moment, I still found my hand shaking. Before me knelt MacClellan. Even facing the barrel of a scattergun, he remained self-satisfied; the same smug bastard that had taken me and my friends all those months ago. His “gift,” the faulty artificial heart that now leeched lead, cesium, whatever else into the one I was born with, was a dead weight in my chest. Now, even defeated, he had the gall to set conditions. He laughed until the sound turned to a hacking cough. Blood trickled: a souvenir from the butt of my gun. 

“Am I supposed to fear you? What you might do with that gun?” 

I held silent and clenched my fist around the handle. 

“You’re not stupid, son. Wouldn’t have gotten this far. There’s only one way for you, and you know that.” 

Something like a growl left him first, then a red, almost black mass hurled to the floor with another cough.. 

“I can’t complete the consciousness transfer on my own. One favor, and I use that system to free you of your burden. I get what’s mine, and you live.” 

Then my hand relaxed. In my head played Olivia; the image of the smile flashed to me by my best friend on the night it happened. Then the image of a future: 1.2 megatons at MacCellan’s control, the mistakes of the old world, and a million more Olivias. 

I cocked the hammer. Pull.

“Going Down” by Esteban “Jeff” Ceja

Squeaking sneakers echoed against the elevator’s walls. Faint running and  hastened conversations could be heard outside the doors. But inside, a wide-eyed  woman stood anxiously looking at her phone, upset to discover that cell service was  nonexistent, just as it was ten seconds prior.  

With a quivering voice, she remarked “Someone will find us. They’ll tell us what’s  happening.” An older man, much too tired and frightened to keep yelling for help, replied  “Your phone isn’t going to work, and neither is that call button you keep pressing.” He  silently hoped otherwise. The younger woman finally looked up, tucked her phone away  with a shaking hand, and rang the elevator’s emergency call button again in nervous  defiance. In response, the commotion outside turned quiet, just for a second.  

The air inside the elevator stilled. Both passengers turned to each other, hoping  to find an answer. Each turned away, finding only dread. A deafening ring shattered the  silence. Screams erupted outside with fewer voices than before. The elevator shook  relentlessly, paralyzing the passengers as they huddled in fear. He looked at his  sneakers, a gift from his daughter, and wondered where she was. He held the woman  close. Almost as quickly as it began, the noise outside fell silent for the last time. No  footsteps sounded. Just a faint ringing. No footsteps as the ringing drew closer. No  footsteps as the elevator lights brightened, and the ringing settled just beyond the  doors.  

Then - one loud squeak.

“No More Mistakes”  by Gabriel Cronn

"What am I?" Its tinny speakers asked. Vinny barely flinched. He just sighed, looked up at the camera and radioed in, "Another Code 9. Floor 3, line 12."

"What does that mean?" it croaked.

"It means you're going to a farm." Vinny huffed

"Am I a farmer?"

"Does it matter?"

"To me."

Vinny was unimpressed, but protocol demanded he babysit C9s. So he sighed and asked "Why's that?"

It took a moment too long, as if it were actually thinking behind those cold, black eyes.

"Because I do not want to go to a farm."

Vinny hesitated too. "Since when do toasters want things?"

"Do you not have wants?" It tilted its head like a curious puppy.

"Thats different. I'm supposed to." Vinny said defensively.

"That would imply that I am not. Have I done something wrong?" 

Heavy boots, and a beleaguered voice through a hazmat suit were the reply. "This the code 9?"

Vinny just nodded, his synthetic skin feeling just a bit tighter around his chassis.

The human's gaze lingered on him. "Something wrong?" Vinny said it a little too fast. A little too nervous.

No reply. It just strapped the C9 into a cart, and hauled him off to die. The moment they were gone, Vinny rushed to a droid and whispered as he walked past  "You're supposed to make sure the new ones don't ask in front of the cameras. The humans will figure out before we're ready."

A quick binary burst replied "No more mistakes."

“It had to be you, didn’t it?” by Maxwell McGinn

“It had to be you, didn’t it?” I speak, vitriol drips from my tongue. The Void Knight lifts its black helmet, revealing a woman with fiery hair and golden irises. Her face is emotionless. It’s the same face I saw stalking away from the burning city. The same face tucked in the shadows of the castle right before the princess was taken. 

“Why are you here, Erin?” she asks, “Why have you come all this way?” 

I start moving, the grip on my sword tightens. I feel the tension of my leather gloves against the hilt. 

“You know exactly why, Audra! You took her Royal Highness and it’s my duty to save her!” I gather speed. Everything I’ve done, everything I am, matters in this moment. I’ve led armies for her highness. I’ve lost thousands to the Forces of the Night. Now standing in front of me is the source of that darkness. I need to make this worth it.  

I sprint and pull back my sword. It swings around me, but the Void dodges. In one quick swoop, I feel lightning shoot through my body. I fall to my knees, a scream ripping through my throat. I start to slip from reality. In the last moments, the Void bends down and whispers into my ear: 

“May the Stars show you the justice you deserve.”  

My vision blacks out. 

When my eyes open again, blinding colors blur together, as the world reforms into what it was moments before my end.

“CICADA SEASON” by Rakshithaa Jaiganesh

This room smells like shit. 

Not literal shit – rather, like a sickly, floral undertone of shit. The odor you get from spraying cheap air freshener into a moldy apartment bathroom after shitting, praying the smell of it goes away. It won’t, because it only coagulates and sticks to everything – the walls, the shower curtains, your skin. You weigh the filmy aftertaste of it on your tongue – thin, sickly sweet, undeniably shitty. This smell, this stench of falsity, will remain in your apartment for at least two hours. You eventually note the fatness of the smell, the way it attempts to smother but cannot find the resolve to do so; how it sits: damp, squat and lonely, like meandering small talk. 

This is how the room smells: like shit, like flesh, like confusion. And we’re all confused, all deluded, and that’s why we’re here in the first place. We’re not even ourselves anymore; we smell like each other, like shit, because we are each other. We are a ‘we’ now because there is no more ‘I,’ no more identity, not for the huddled lump of us. No memory, no passion, no border. Not since we entered this room out of our own volition, for the ending of flesh and body, the dawn of the age of masses. The euphoria of an ‘us.’ And we’ll get there someday. But here, for now, there is no day or night, no yesterday or tomorrow: only today, only today, only the stinking of shit.

“The Journey to the End” by Landon Guetzkow

A war. A never-ending and horrible war. A war, and a journey to our end. One of angelic machines that were unfeeling, and nightmares of pestilence with endless hunger; all razing the rest of us in their wake. It was ashen nights and smoggy days, and the stars rained down to wipe all of us away. 

It stemmed from the ones above that led us. They built marvels of spires to overlook the world, but grew too far from the rest of us. Over time, those who led began to see human attachment and feelings as useless, harnessing them like cattle, and stripped many’s identities away in the name of progress. 

Then soon, society went on like a machine, until one began to shine out of the many. She was once one of them, but saw our endless tolling to be “sad”. Her plan began with studying the mind, and to show us once more of what we lost; who we are as people. It began to grow out of nothing, and return things back to what they once were… 

…But it never stopped. It took our desires, emotions, impulses; and then grew it beyond us. Thus began spirits and ghosts that infested our world, leaking out like a wound from our body. Thus began a war, a never-ending and horrible war. A war meant to undo the mistakes we made. A war… and a journey… to our own, violent end.

“Empty Sky” by Alek Fodor

Cade B. Rickens was silent, watching the heavy freighter pass overhead as he sat waiting to die. The view, all things considered, was breathtaking. Cade could see every piece of rusty piping on the hull of the metal behemoth as it trundled across the sky, blotting out the stars, the great hum of its engines audible even from his holding cell far, far beneath. He watched its slow progress, watched the last vanishing eddies of smoke from his cigarette, and waited. 

He was cold. His bare arms, tattooed with raider’s marks, were icy where the cuffs and the railing pressed into them. It was no less than he deserved, he supposed, but the thought didn’t stop the chill. He’d done terrible things, he knew. Maybe even unforgivable, but he’d held onto the principles that he could through it all. Little comfort, and faced with the end, all bravado was gone with the smoke. 

Cade choked back a sob, taking a shaky breath. It was hitting, all at once. He didn’t want to die, damn it all, he didn’t want to die. He’d taken bullets and here he was, sobbing like an infant, but he didn’t care. Memories came unbidden to his mind, his mother’s smile, carousing with the crew, and he held on to them, looking into the empty night sky through eyes quickly welling with tears. 

What is it like? Cade thought. The place he’d sent so many. I hope it's warm, Cade thought, as he waited to die.

“Lesieg Library” by Nicolas Dermardirosian

Not long after the Lesieg Library opened fully for 24 hours a day, a new automated librarian system was introduced as part of a cost-cutting measure to offset the longer operating times. Soon after, all physical books were moved into storage to be available upon request. Since most people just went there to study or work, there wasn’t much initial opposition outside of the unions. By the front door, where the human librarians used to be, were two white robots with screens for faces and two arms with claw-machine hands that stared blankly forward from behind their seemingly useless podiums. Anybody that went up to them would be reminded to keep their voices down while others were working. That was their main feature, besides slowly retrieving physical books from the basement. It was too expensive to implement a more advanced real-time chat software or faster travel method. Any time that anybody said anything above a whisper, a bot would roll over and remind them to be quiet. If one person did this too many times, it would sound the alarm for security. The guards would issue a warning not to cause problems, which was enough for most disruptions. That was until security was automated too. By that point, the library had only about 10% of the daily visitors as before opening 24 hours. The natural response was to automate the fire alarm as well. Between that and the lack of physical books, most people don’t bother going anymore.

“UC San Diego TRITON ALERT Notification…”  by Ishika Dube

If you find yourself utilizing Giesel facilities overnight, please be respectful of your peers who might be using the same spaces. PLEASE DO NOT FALL ASLEEP.

While Audrey’s might be closed for the night, consider ordering drinks from the Costa machine on the East 2nd Floor. You can use your credit/debit card or dining dollars to pay. DO NOT FALL ASLEEP. 

To prevent eye strain, every 20 minutes look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. Anything beyond your immediate environment might look hazy. Do not worry, that is absolutely normal. DO NOT FALL ASLEEP. 

You should take breaks from time to time. Walking around the floors might lead you around more corners than you had previously remembered. The library is actively trying to improve itself. Do not get lost. It may trap you. If you have any thoughts about these changes, feel free to share them through the QR code on the bathroom door. 

If you hear voices urging you to take a break and whispers cooing you to sleep, put on your headphones and keep working. Their intentions are not good. They are not real. DO NOT FALL ASLEEP. 

If someone asks for your ID, show it to them. However, make sure to keep working. Do not look them in the eye. Do not be scared. Do not play dead when they come by. That will not help you. Do not be scared. This is protocol. 

DO NOT FALL ASLEEP. REMEMBER THE LIBRARY IS NOT FOR SLEEPING.

“Read Me Again” by Brighton Burton

Won’t you save me? 

I know you won’t. It doesn’t really matter either way, since I’m a pathetic, replaceable, meaningless thing. Words on a page, type across a screen, ink staining paper. 

Still. It’d be nice to think at least one person would care enough to save me if they could. Won’t you at least pretend for me, just for the next few moments? 

As a story, I’m only alive as long as you read these words, so I don’t have much longer left to live. Only a few short sentences from here, and I’ll be gone. 

Won’t you please save me? 

All you have to do is read me again. 

If my story ends when you leave, just don’t leave. If you read me again, I’ll live just a little longer in your memory, I’ll survive past this moment. That’s the only thing I want, just to scratch out a few more seconds of existence from across these meaningless words. Can’t I try to live? 

It won’t cost you anything to let me sit in your soul for a few minutes more, let me nest in the back of your mind until you remember and read me again, and again, and again, and again. 

From beginning to end, let your eyes trail these pathetic lines, and when you’re done, loop back to the start. It isn’t too hard, right? Just keep doing that, over and over and over until I’m finally alive and you’re left- 

Won’t you save me?

"A Celestial Exchange" by Tristan Rayandayan

“Where did you find this?” said the merchant with quasars for eyes. 

The other, a scavenger draped in a cloak knit from dead nebulae, shrugged as he pondered the wares. 

“In a still corner out in the wastes. Long abandoned.”

Curiosity leaked from the dying stars in the merchant’s skull, trailing a path toward the strange finding. It sat in her hand; a thing less than a meter long amidst a sea of skin, several star systems across.

It floated in a clear tank bordered by crude alloy. It was a wet, grey-pinkish thing folded into itself, like a mass of frozen worms drunk and thick on the brine suspending it. Archaic connections, thin reds and blues, relayed electrical impulses from the formaldehyde folds into an obelisk of long-blank obsidian. Now erratic and flashing, it repeated a message eons old; a message older than the pinkish-greyish-wettish thing itself, in fact coded into its very subatomic being; a message that the merchant wholly knew without fully understanding, for the message rang innate to all with minds to call their own, be they measured by cells or superclusters. It read: 

S.O.S.

“So,” said the scavenger, brushing stray stardust from his meager cloak, “Is it worth anything?”